I like to play basketball – even though at the current time I’m still recovering from an injury and shouldn’t even be thinking of the court right now. One thing I learnt playing basketball against people who could wipe the floor with me was to not hate the player, but to hate the game (I’m sure my brother Phil Naessens down at Theology Today would agree since he teaches tennis). However I discovered that my little principle for playing basketball is a little transferable to pretty much any endeavour you put your hand to, and in this case, the study of theology.

Of late, I have been loving the blog posts of Parchment and Pen (CMP, you’re a beast!). One of the posts I have really enjoyed of late has been his consideration of the need for hermeneutics which was pointedly titled It Does Not Matter What It Means to You. During the comment thread, one particular lady continued to make the point that we don’t really need theology at all. In her last post, a response to a comment I made, she said the following:

Douglas,
I think really the issues you have with me are more than just me being a little “argumentative as you have said in other places. Yes, God gave you a brain, but what does he say about puffed up intelligence?

1 Corinthians 3
16Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
17If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.
18Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.
19For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
20And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

Does that sound like God trusts us with our brains? And yes studying God through HIS word, not everybody else’s word.

Galatians 3
1O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?
2This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
3Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?
4Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.
5He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
6Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
7Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.
8And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.
9So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

What? You mean the Galatians started off Spirit filled and Spirit led until someone came along and preached something else and it bewitched them? You’ve got to be kidding that this could happen to Christians. The point is not the Judaizers (if that was who was preaching it, but I think not) but the fragility and vanity of the person who was gullible enough to go along with it.

Now this line of argument – i.e. “theology is problematic/evil, but it leads to puffing up in pride – is not new to me. I live with a Pentecostal pastor (my Dad) and attend his church (long story, search the blog for “the clampdown”) and generally doctrine is looked down upon. My problem with that line of thinking is that it is directly applicable to any sphere. Anything you do can become a means for pride – my question is, “Who is to blame?” Is it theology by its very nature that makes people prideful? Hate to say it, but nope it’s not. If that were true, Paul was incredibly prideful – having penned half our New Testament.

Well then what is truly to blame for the fact that some of the most prideful people are sometimes the most spiritually prideful? The sickness of the human heart. The fact that man does not merely commit sins, but that he is a sinner through and through. It pervades into his very nature, taking even good things like theology and using them to the end of self-glorification. What my friend the commenter didn’t understand is that it’s not the thing it and of itself that leads to the pride they were discussing – it is the sin-sickness of the human heart that leads to such.

In other words…don’t hate the knowledge, hate the one abusing the knowledge. In fact, don’t even hate them – pray that the truth in their heart will become a reality in the heart…

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